Cluster repair strategies in child Greek: An optimality theoretic account

Abstract

This case study investigates the simplification strategies of reduction to the more sonorous cluster member and cluster deletion in [obstruent + liquid] clusters. These strategies are in complementary distribution: the former applies in [obstruent + lateral] clusters and the latter in [obstruent + rhotic] ones. There is a contiguity effect in the child’s system, i.e. the grammar requires that the adjacent segments in the input be adjacent in the output. The pattern of reduction to the more sonorous member of the cluster in [obstruent + lateral] clusters is contiguity-driven and satisfies the adjacency requirement. The adjacency requirement is not met in [obstruent + rhotic] clusters. The complementary distribution of these strategies emerges from the permission of lateral-initial onsets and the prohibition of rhotic-initial ones in the output. We claim that cluster deletion is an epiphenomenon of the grammar’s restrictions on onsets, i.e. the contiguity effect and the prohibition of rhotic-initial onsets results in cluster deletion.